Page 52 of Oh, Flutz!

“Well, thanks for your input. But, like you said, I don’t really have a choice.” Honestly, why am I even standing here arguing about this?

“Katya!” I yell, and her head jerks up.

I tap the nonexistent watch on my wrist. “We gotta get to the meeting!”

“Do not rush me.”

“You haven’t even taken your skates off!”

She fires me a middle finger, yanking off a boot and letting it drop to the floor with a thunk.

I laugh to myself, then turn around, clapping Ollie on the back. “See? No chance in hell.”

We're sitting in oneof the management offices, Katya and I seated next to each other across from our coach and the reporter.

Who, just as I expected, is extremely annoying, with a voice so grating you could powder parmesan cheese with it.

“Hi, guys, it’s so great to meet you,” she says, smiling with all her teeth. “I wassoexcited to hear all the rumors were true. I’ve been obsessing over every single thing I could find about the two of you from IceZone and Blade Gossips.”

Katya and I exchange looks. That’s probably the worst thing she could say to us to get us to trust her. Those two tabloids make it their mission to make pro skaters’ lives miserable.

“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to introduce myself!” She laughs, widening her eyes. “I’m Giselle Thomas. I’m writing the story on the two of you, so get ready to spill all your deepest darkest secrets!”

“Is this a joke?” I say under my breath, and Lee shoots me a warning glance.

Giselle pulls out a folder from her laptop bag, laying it out on the table. “So, the plan is, I’ll ask you some questions now, and then later if we have time, maybe you guys could show me what you’ve been up to. Give the fans a little sneak peek, you know?”

“That sounds great,” Lian says, her fake PR voice in full swing. “Right?”

“Great,” I repeat dully, and Katya nods.

“Perfect!” Giselle says cheerily, opening her laptop. “Now, let’s get started, shall we?”

Lian just sits there supervising as she starts off with the basics. I’ve had to answer the same ones hundreds of times, and I assume Katya’s done the same—where we grew up, where we trained, how long we trained, who we trained with. I’m not giving Giselle much to work with, so she seems relieved when she can move onto my partner.

“So, Katya, you moved to Moscow when you were twelve, correct? Could you tell me a little bit about that transition?”

“Yes, that’s true.” Katya shifts in her seat, braid slipping off her shoulder. “There was an audition at the skating school and I managed to be accepted, so I moved there. I started training with Maxim Osipov originally, and Ksenia Savchenko, but within six months Tatyana Zhukova found me, and after that I was with her camp full-time.”

I love how she acts like it was a miracle. Even as a twelve-year-old, she was probably skating (literal) circles around all the other kids. For someone who’s not humble in the slightest, she sure seems to only have a vague understanding of how good she is.

Giselle scribbles some notes, nodding energetically. “Was it hard, moving away from your family at such a young age?”

“Of course,” Katya replies. “It was difficult. Very difficult at times. I was very young, but my mother and grandfather trusted me to handle it. And I could go home and see them once a week during the off-season, so it wasn’t so bad. But I knew that sacrifices had to be made in order to become a high-level skater. So whenever I missed my family, I reminded myself why I had left them, and that kept me going. I wanted to reach my goals, and make them proud, too.”

She’s been more talkative to the reporter in five minutes than she’s been to me in five months.Katya? Having actual human feelings?She must be pulling a Lian, which is even weirder considering she’s never had a problem ripping reporters a new one before, or anyone else for that matter. Guess our coaches must’ve put the fear of AFSC in her, too.

Unless…does she actually not mind this at all? Being grilled to a char about our personal lives, vomiting up a bunch of information that everybody knows already, having to fake that we get along all the time and haven’t tried to strangle each other more times than we can count?

Either way, Giselle seems to approve. “That’s a great mindset. And that wasn’t the only difficult move you’ve made in your life for skating, either. Do you mind telling me about the transition from Moscow to Lake Placid? We’ve all heard rumors, but what’s the truth?”

Shit.

Lian tenses up, too, meeting my eyes across the table—we didn’t plan a response for this question. It’s a pretty obvious one, so we should have.Damn it.

Katya’s silent, chewing on her lip. “It was—I mean, it was complicated. I don’t—I don’t…” Her cheeks have turned pink. She looks almost nauseous, actually, and before I know it, I’m jumping in.

“She thought it was time for a change,” I supply, giving her a tiny nod before looking back at Giselle. “We both had a rough season. Everyone thought it could be a good idea. A way to…well, to start over, I guess.” I fumble for Katya’s hand under the table before giving it a squeeze. “And it’s gone even better than we could’ve expected.”

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